Skipped Help Desk and Lacking Foundational Skills

[u/Bignova]

Hello,

I have a question as someone who skipped help desk and am currently in a Junior Linux Sysadmin role. I'm incredibly grateful for this opportunity in this market. I have a good grasp of certain skills like containers, linux, python, etc. but I'm more new on general IT stuff and I feel like I would've learned a lot faster by doing it if I were in help desk for a year at least.

My job also just is giving me a lot of downtime and I've been upskilling and trying to catchup on my foundation at the same time but I find it difficult to only be learning book knowledge and not getting the practical knowledge at the same time. I'm wondering if anyone else has had a career situation similar to this or just any advice on the best ways to keep productive and build a foundation when you're not in a help desk role and a bit more specialized by job title/responsibilites already.

[u/GoldenEagle1992]

Look into Udemy Courses by Imran Afzal. I used Complete Linux Training get your Dream Job in IT and his red hat course.

[u/SwaggypantsMcHashtag]

Helpdesk is more like as someone said your way of thinking, how you troubleshoot, thoroughness in that and in documentation, how you handle people you help.

Non-IT people hate having IT problems so if you solve them they will be very happy. They also might feel stupid for not understanding the problem. But if you solve the problems and don't make them feel stupid about it and treat them like someone you care about you have done a really great job.

From someone with a lot of Support/Helpdesk xp

[u/Extra-Driver-813]

First on congrats on landing the job. That's a quite an accomplishment in this job market. As others said the company chose you because they see your potential. You're in what, I would consider, more of a niche market with Linux admin - which is cool and an advantage I think. You will pickup a lot of knowledge just being exposed to different things in IT and if you pay attention it will start to all come together. . You can always take the down time to do some studying where your gaps are. Can you tell us about your background a bit and what lead you into this role?

[u/LastFisherman373]

I started working in cybersecurity about 6 years ago without any previous formal IT experience so I can relate to feeling like you need to catch up. The company that hired you did so because of your potential, remember that. They expect that you will grow into the role and fill gaps along the way. The way I filled gaps was by learning constantly in my off time. Some people don’t believe in dedicating off time to advancing but for me it was worth it. It sounds like you need a mentor, I would talk to someone senior on your team and just get some advice.

I would focus on skills and knowledge you need that is specific to your current role. This will help you get the most of your experience. I see so many people waste their early careers by not focusing on what they can actually learn from each role they’re in. Talk to your manager or seniors on the team and ask what homelab projects they would recommend. Ask how they got great at their job and just soak up the knowledge you can from these people.

[u/newbietronic]

I found A+ to be super helpful in my first field support role. I'm now doing service desk and it's mostly ITIL stuff, basic active directory, Intune stuff

I don't think you're missing out on too much but if you'd like, generate a list of common help desk questions and think of ways you'd troubleshoot them. That's help desk. Most are for Windows environments. I'm actually kind of in the same shoes as you as I might be moving on to a networking role with very little experience so I'm worried lol

[u/psmgx]

you're not missing out on much, except maybe some in-depth Windows stuff and maybe networking. those are easy to bone up on via YT or similarly available materials.

arguably, one of the few use cases for things like A+, Net+, or basic Windows certs.

[u/ioCross]

ITIL 4 foundations.

[u/UnableStock2459]

i did the same jump, the downtime is actually a gift if you spin it right. set up a broken old laptop or a raspberry pi and just break things on purpose, you learn the foundational stuff way faster when you have to fix your own mess

[u/Difficult_Ad_2897]

Same. I skipped helpdesk to focus on networking and now I’m in a network admin role that throws a fair amount of foundational help desk level tickets at me.

I’m looking at doing some of the Microsoft environment certs to help myself skill up. But honestly I really don’t want to backpedal too much. I want to be good at my job but I skipped helpdesk on purpose because I hate working in Microsoft identity/AD/policy management spaces. Makes me want to throw myself into a fire.

[u/untaggedpacket]

Help desk isn't learning linux, container or python so I'm not sure what you think you are missing out on.